College of the Desert's Martha Garcia named next president of Mt. San Antonio College

College of the Desert Superintendent/President Martha Garcia has been appointed as the next president of Mt. San Antonio College.

When she takes office July 1, Garcia will serve as the chief executive officer for the largest single-district college in the state. She will replace Bill Scroggins, who is retiring in June after leading Mt. SAC, as it's familiarly known, for 12 years.

She will also be the school's first female president in 50 years and its first president of color.

“I am ecstatic at the opportunity to lead Mt. SAC and I am grateful the board has entrusted me to serve as the next president,” Garcia said in a statement. “I am looking forward to working with the college’s teams and especially to serving students. That’s why I do what I do.”

“Dr. Garcia has demonstrated she is committed to the transformative power of higher education, and the board is confident she will provide excellent, inclusive, and student-focused leadership at Mt. SAC," said Mt. SAC Board President Gary Chow.

Mt. SAC is located in the City of Walnut about 25 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Its local college district boundaries encompass roughly 20 communities in east Los Angeles County.

Mt. SAC served more than 35,000 students during the fall 2022 term, whereas COD served 11,000, according to data from the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. Mt. SAC says it serves thousands more people through community programs, workforce development programs and other non-credit courses, according to its website.

A COD spokesperson has not responded to an inquiry asking when Garcia's last day will be leading COD.

Garcia had been named one of five finalists for the Mt. SAC job in early March. She was selected for the top job from more than 37 applicants from across the country and finalists, including:

• Erika Endrijonas, superintendent/president, Pasadena City College

• Nicole Esposito, chief executive officer, Manchester Community College, Manchester, Connecticut

• Kimberlee Messina, president, Spokane Falls Community College, Spokane, Washington

• Katrina VanderWoude, vice chancellor, Los Angeles Community College District

A brief, tumultuous tenure at COD

After serving as the first female superintendent/president of Imperial Valley College, where she spent 22 years of her career, Garcia was selected as COD's eighth superintendent/president in July 2021. She succeeded Joel Kinnamon, who retired in March 2021.

The COD Board voted to hire her in a rare split 3-2 decision: Trustees Ruben Perez, Bea Gonzalez and Aurora Wilson voted in favor of her appointment while Fred Jandt and Bonnie Stefan voted against it.

Some faculty — upset with the decision not to select longtime assistant superintendent Annebelle Nery — shortly thereafter considered a vote of no confidence against Garcia and the three trustees who voted her into office, saying they felt the board had dismissed their opinions. Ultimately, however, they dropped the plan.

Last fall, Kinnamon successfully ran to replace Wilson as the Area 4 trustee, and has been an outspoken critic of Garcia's administration, particularly its handling of capital projects such as the Roadrunner Motors automotive training center in Cathedral City and the planned Palm Springs campus. Jandt, another Garcia critic, resigned from the board at the end of March due to health reasons.

In November, the board approved a pay raise and extension for Garcia days after Wilson lost her bid for reelection to Kinnamon, but before Kinnamon was seated on the dais. Garcia was hired in 2021 at a base salary of $355,000 and had her pay increased to $397,000 in November. Scroggins had a base salary at Mt. SAC in 2021 of $310,000, according to Transparent California, a database of public employee compensation. The Mt. SAC Board has not released information regarding what might be in Garcia's next contract, which will have to be posted online for the public and go to the board for formal approval.

Concerns over bond projects

In February, Kinnamon, Jandt and Stefan voted to resurrect old plans for a landmark $300 million-plus COD campus in Palm Springs originally drafted by Kinnamon's administration and funded through bonds approved by Coachella Valley taxpayers.

Their vote went against Garcia's advice to move forward with plans for the campus redrawn by her administration since the pandemic. Garcia's plans have taken into account new student and regional workforce data collected by the school in the last year.

The project is slated to be built on the site of the old Palm Springs Mall on East Tahquitz Canyon Drive. For much of 2021 and 2022, conflicting information about the state of completion of plans and debate about whether and how to move forward led to multiple controversies and conflicts.

The City of Palm Springs sued COD for what it alleged to be a lack of transparency and the college's failure to comply with the California Public Records Act.

More broadly, communities across the valley have been skeptical about how COD has chosen to allocate nearly $1 billion of bond money for construction projects under Kinnamon's and Garcia's administrations.

In Indio, Garcia has advanced multiple construction projects totaling over $100 million for a campus expansion and early childhood education center. She has also moved forward with renovations to the college's main campus in Palm Desert and plans for the $30 million Roadrunner Motors automotive center in Cathedral City.

But she stirred concern related to that project in fall 2021, when she paused planning for the Cathedral City project and asked college officials to consider another site near Indio due to "cost overruns."

Roughly six months later, Cathedral City officials staged a rally to urge the college to proceed with its original plans to invest there, which the board has decided to do.

Meanwhile, officials from Coachella and the communities of Mecca and Thermal have called on COD to invest more in higher education facilities in the easternmost portion of the Coachella Valley, where COD has operated a small campus for more than a decade.

In addition, a largely anonymous yet evidently well-funded group has sponsored multimedia campaigns calling for Garcia's resignation throughout her tenure at COD.

Administrative turnover and operational concerns

Administrative turnover has been an issue at COD since Garcia took office.

“Every week it seems another administrator is gone, another staff position is left unfilled, often with no reason given for not replacing someone desperately needed," Academic Senate President Kim Dozier told the board of trustees in October.

Dozier said COD is facing a “brain drain.”

Former vice presidents Mark Zacovic and Nery left to become presidents of other California community colleges. Zacovic became the interim superintendent/president at Monterey Peninsula College, and Nery is the president of Santa Ana College. John Ramont, former vice president of administrative services, left to become deputy director of finance for the City of Palm Desert. In September, Douglas Benoit, the former dean of applied sciences and business, announced his resignation.

In December, COD Vice President Jeff Baker initiated a legal claim against the college, Garcia and two trustees, alleging they defamed him and that former trustee Wilson retaliated against him after he raised concerns about the college’s 2021 search that resulted in the hiring of Garcia. Baker, who had taken a leave of absence from the college, has returned to his duties while his legal claim is pending.

Garcia has also taken flak for hiring Christina Tafoya, a longtime friend and colleague from Imperial Valley College, to become COD's executive vice president with an annual base salary of $250,000. Critics of the hire said Tafoya was an unconventional choice because she does not hold a graduate degree in education. Tafoya, who holds a doctor of dental surgery degree from the University of Southern California, had spent her entire 15-year career at California community colleges. COD did not say whether other candidates were considered for the position when asked by The Desert Sun.

Adjunct faculty members have also ramped up complaints about working conditions at COD this school year, arguing for better pay and benefits and significant changes to the way the school provides classes.

And, a second cyberattack against COD since 2020 took the school's website down for two weeks last summer and caused massive disruptions to student services. The attack prompted an FBI investigation. On Wednesday, Garcia issued a letter to students, staff and faculty saying that a third-party forensic investigation revealed that certain former student and employee data may have been subject to unauthorized access, according to an email reviewed by The Desert Sun.

Like many other community colleges, COD is also treading water to maintain enrollment, which is tied to long-term state funding.

Although Garcia failed to meet her goal of boosting COD's enrollment in 2022 by 10% relative to 2021, enrollment at the college appears to have stabilized since the initial shock of the pandemic and COD's enrollment trends are faring better than at many community colleges across the state.

Headcount at COD is down about 12.5% since 2019-2020. California has lost nearly 200,000 community college students over that period, or about 15% of statewide headcount.

Headcount at Mt. San Antonio College has fallen by 14% to 19% over the same time period, according to state data.

Jonathan Horwitz covers education for The Desert Sun. Reach him at jonathan.horwitz@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Martha Garcia named next president of Mt. San Antonio College